Freedom, even as apparently straightforward a type as political freedom, is not that simple to grasp. Freedom from what? Freedom to do what? Does political freedom simply mean the release from oppression, to vote, stand for office, freely participate in politics? Or does it always signal and require other types of freedoms? Can we have political freedom when we do not have freedom to express ourselves, to associate freely, where the media is inhibited? What does it mean to be politically free but without a decent job? When you sometimes go hungry? In a starkly economically or sexually unequal society? How much sense does it make to say that the group to which you belong – say, men as a group, or whites, or heterosexuals – is free when other groups are oppressed by, or on behalf of, your group? These questions are vital for anyone interested in political African psychology; in teaching about political emancipation; in tracing the history of African freedom struggles; in looking at the future of freedom. In a book about looking at the world from a certain place in that world, though, we can limit ourselves to considering concrete acts of freedom to make freedom apprehensible. Freedom from the overt or subtle coercion to see the environment, self, and others in a way that privileges a white, male, Euroamerican gaze is cardinal. The individual's autonomy to look is a sine qua non of political freedom. And, absolutely, freedom always calls for other rights.

It is axiomatic that white racism seeks to turn black people into inferior humans. It wants to render them as servants. It criminalises them. It infantilises. Or, when it wants to be charitable, it stereotypes them as pitiable creatures.

The same holds for sexism: its goal is to turn women into objects, into bodies, into childlike beings who look up to men, or into men's helpers. The effect, in all cases, is to subordinate them to men.

The same is also true of how the rich look upon those who are poor. The poor are lazy. They are delinquents. They are pathological, harbouring mental and medical diseases. They have to be felt sorry for.